Baldwin-Wallace College musical theater program is back, and so is video documentary 'Stages'

View full sizeScott Shaw, The Plain DealerBaldwin-Wallace music-theater program director Victoria Bussert works with students in 2008.

School is back in session at the music-theater program at Baldwin-Wallace College, where it's going to be a blockbuster year with what is believed to be the first joint production of the rock musical "Rent" and its source material, the opera "La Boheme."

And back again also is Cleveland director and theater videographer Geoff Short to document the students and faculty and they rise to this momentous dual production, which will play in rotating repertory in February.

Below are the two latest in Short's "Stages" video series, which started last season. The first, Episode 18, concerns itself with the cranking-up of the 2010-11 school year and with it the "Rent"/"Boheme" project. The second, a special episode titled "It Gets Better", is a response by B-W's tuneful thespians to recent national news stories of bullying and a rash of tragic suicides by young gay people.

"Students and teachers took time out of rehearsal to share personal stories and offer hope to anyone who is hurting and desperate," Short said.

Added Victoria Bussert, Cleveland's leading director of musicals and director of the B-W program: "I'm so proud of our students" for taking their candid stands in the video.

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